Sunday, June 26, 2016

The Secret Life of Resurgent Aliens

‘The Secret Life of Pets’ tells the story of how an unwanted rabbit, radicalised by a revolutionary dialectic, attempts to lead a sewer-based uprising but, haunted by the memories of fallen comrades, is driven to increasingly psychotic behaviour; how his mission is further compromised by the bumbling intervention of two temporary refugees from the bourgeoisie; and how, after a ruinous alliance with a group aligned to different priorities, he finally succumbs to the comforts of that which he professes to hate. This is, of course, disguised by the framing story of how a handful of mismatched but ultimately cute domesticated pets have an adventure as they cross the city in search of their missing friends, but those of us trained in analysing the subtext of U-rated animations will immediately realise what it's really about.

‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ tells the story of how some studio money-men basically recycled most of the iconic bits from the original but without replicating that film’s sense of gee-whiz entertainment, because hey it worked for ‘The Force Awakens’ so fuck you, audience, just hand over your hard-earned.

Ultimately, both films would have been immeasurably improved by being edited into a single entity wherein grudge-bearing aliens get their second twatting in twenty years, but this time by a rabbit with a hair-trigger temper and a love of pyrotechnics. It still wouldn’t have been as good ‘Zootroplis’, but meh.